This invention relates to automated document authoring and distribution systems and to a system that enables subscribers to efficiently author, maintain and distribute informational objects that contain immutable content, such as Material Safety Data Sheets that are used in the chemical manufacturing industry.
It is a problem in the field of information distribution to author, maintain and distribute informational objects that contain immutable data. An example of an informational object is the chemical manufacturing industry""s Material Safety Data Sheet that is generated in compliance with appropriate government regulations. Presently this process is paper-based and entails a significant cost, in the case of Material Safety Data Sheets, for both manufacturers of chemicals as well as distributors/users of chemicals.
A Material Safety Data Sheet consists of a collection of information that relates to a specific chemical product. The information typically identifies the manufacturer of the chemical, its commercial name and other identification information, various physical and health characteristics, instructions related to worker health and safety in the storage, transportation, handling and disposal of the chemical, and instructions and medical information related to an emergency response in the case of a chemical release or injury. The format and content of the Material Safety Data Sheets are mandated in a general and inconsistent manner by various regulatory agencies. The Material Safety Data Sheets must be issued and updated by each chemical manufacturer for each chemical that they manufacture.
These documents are presently distributed in a paper-based format (including scanned images) and require extensive resources to maintain. In addition, there is significant redundancy of effort, since each manufacturer must generate and maintain Material Safety Data Sheets for each product that they manufacture, even though the equivalent or identical product may be manufactured by another chemical manufacturer. The chemical manufacturers are obligated under regulations of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to distribute paper-based Material Safety Data Sheets free of charge to all of their customers, who must receive the Material Safety Data Sheets for each chemical purchased and must make the corresponding Material Safety Data Sheets available to their workers free of charge. Furthermore, the manufacturers must author, maintain and distribute the paper-based Material Safety Data Sheets at their own burden costs while their customers must receive and maintain the same Material Safety Data Sheets at their own burden costs. The burden costs involved in executing this process is significant, both to the manufacturers and their customers. There is presently no central registry of Material Safety Data Sheets, even though there are in excess of 1,000,000 chemicals for which a corresponding Material Safety Data Sheet is required.
Thus, the need to automate the authoring of informational objects, the rendering of such informational objects into an immutable form, and the distribution of the immutable content informational objects in compliance with certain defined criteria represents a problem. The chemical manufacturing industry is illustrative of the nature of this problem and the example of Material Safety Data Sheets is used for the purpose of illustrating the operation of the present informational object authoring and distribution system and is not intended to limit the scope of the described system.
The above-described problems are solved and a technical advance achieved by the present informational object authoring and distribution system functions to provide Value-Added Material Safety Data Sheets via the use of a centralized repository of uniquely identified, immutable Material Safety Data Sheets. This system automates the authoring, maintenance and distribution of the Value-Added Material Safety Data Sheets by using an Internet-based paradigm and a centralized repository of uniquely-identified, immutable data elements. The informational object authoring and distribution system provides a set of software modules that the manufacturers can use to author, maintain and distribute Material Safety Data Sheets and their customers can use to retrieve, maintain and distribute the Material Safety Data Sheets. The system""s interconnectivity allows for the use of an Internet-based paradigm for the purchase and sale among members of the system of Value-Added Material Safety Data Sheets as commodities, and for reducing the burden costs among members of compliance with government regulations. In addition, the informational object authoring and distribution system can provide value-added services by provides advertising of services and products facilitating the interconnection of the manufacturers and manufacturer""s customers with other members who are vendors, and who provide services and products related to the information and instructions contained in Value-Added Material Safety Data Sheets.
The system uses an object-oriented framework for communication of the Material Safety Data Sheets among the manufacturers, manufacturer""s customers and workers. The Value-Added Material Safety Data Sheets are not document files or database files, but instead are objects that contain sequences of instructions and information on which the instructions operate. A particular Value-Added Material Safety Data Sheet contains pointers that identify a plurality of immutable xe2x80x9cbuilding blocksxe2x80x9d of information that, when collected, comprise the Material Safety Data Sheet. Each building block is comprised of a data element and a unique identifier that exclusively identifies that data element.
Since the data elements are fixed, they do not require updating and a new version of a Material Safety Data Sheet for a particular chemical simply includes a unique identifier that points to a replacement data element, while the original data element is maintained in the central database. Thus, a data element is not expunged from the database but is simply supplanted by a later version of the data element. Thus, for each venue, the contents of the Material Safety Data Sheet remain immutable, even though the format can vary. In addition, the creation of a new Material Safety Data Sheet can utilize existing data elements from the central database if the content of the associated portion of the Material Safety Data Sheet is identical to this data element. Thus, authoring new Material Safety Data Sheets can benefit from a repository of standardized data elements, with only the unique segments of the new Material Safety Data Sheet requiring the creation of a new data element. Translations of the data elements into other languages is simplified since the system mandates the use of standardized phrases and other associated data in the creation of the various data elements. In addition, the data elements can be transported on a read only basis from a Material Safety Data Sheet to another database by simply filtering the data retrieved by the Material Safety Data Sheet object. In this manner the integrity of the informational object authoring and distribution system is maintained but the data contained therein is available to manufacturers and other members of the system for related purposes.
As the Material Safety Data Sheets are authored, maintained and distributed, the relevant data regarding these processes and the entities participating in these processes are available, with appropriate authorization of the parties, to use in identifying products and services that can be beneficial to these entities participating in these processes. In particular, the context of the Material Safety Data Sheet authoring, maintenance or distribution can be used to identify products and services that are pertinent to the chemical identified in the Material Safety Data Sheet in terms of context sensitive, real-time advertising access to members who access the Material Safety Data Sheets.